


Being Taken Care of (By The Family)

by Polska_1999



Series: Come Home Safe [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Man 1, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Tony is Missing in Afghanistan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 13:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15073901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polska_1999/pseuds/Polska_1999
Summary: After spending a night in Tony's home, Pepper found herself taking a warm bath and then finding a small surprise, all while realizing that it's possible to miss someone you didn't know you liked.Turns out, you can't predict everything, especially when it comes to Tony Stark and his house.





	Being Taken Care of (By The Family)

**Author's Note:**

> Happens directly after "Caring for the Family" in the "Come Home Safe" series.

She woke up rather early, well-rested and more comfortable than in a 5-star hotel. The sheets were high-quality, the pillows softer than clouds, and the temperature in the room was perfect. It felt more like she was dreaming than awake, and regardless of what this was, she was more than fine with just… laying there for a few minutes, for once not in a rush to attend to errands. She allowed herself to just lay there, letting her body and mind awaken before she sat up. Her action alerted JARVIS that she was planning to get up, which prompted him to greet her.

_ “Good morning, Miss Potts. It is currently 7:36 in the morning on March 3rd, 2009. The air temperature outside is  _ _ 61 degrees Fahrenheit _ _ , and there is a 5 km/hr west northwest wind, _ ” The AI of the house informed her. This coincidentally also reminded her of where she was — Tony’s Malibu home.

It didn’t come as a surprise to her; after all, she expected to stay the night when she came here. What she hadn’t expected, however, was for her to sleep so damn well while here. She supposed that having a brilliant AI as a personal butler that could control practically all aspects of the house had its benefits. She didn’t remember inputting any of her preferences into the system, but perhaps JARVIS had been able to figure out what settings helped her sleep best. 

She looked around the room, taking in its appearance. The windows, which had been tinted slightly when she went to sleep to keep the setting sun from blinding her while still allowing it to maintain its beauty, were now fully clear, providing her with a stunning view of the ocean-covered horizon as the sun shined upon it from the other side of the house. She was almost certain that the temperature in the room warmed up slightly, compensating for her no longer being curled up beneath the covers, but the transition was so smooth she was not completely certain. Yeah, this was definitely better than even the best of hotels. (Well, it would have been, if she wasn’t haunted by reminders of who owned the house.)

She took her time with getting ready for the day. She walked into the bathroom with her bathrobe (a sunset-orange one, a present from Tony, or rather one that she had bought herself as a present from him. She distinctly remembered that he had told her it reminded him of her hair, a comment which was worth more than the robe itself in her opinion), two clean towels already hung up on the racks, one for her hair and one for drying herself off. When she had to work around Tony’s crazy schedule, she showered or bathed simply whenever she got the chance to, sometimes in the mornings and sometimes in the afternoon; even with Tony missing, she still didn’t have much of a normal schedule to her life, not used to having a sense of normalcy — adjusting to Tony’s schedule was  _ her  _ normalcy. Needless to say, she simply showered whenever she saw fit, and seeing that she had been too tired to wash last night, a morning shower it was for today. 

She reconsidered that, though. Why a shower? She wasn’t in a rush; she didn’t have anywhere to be. With Tony suddenly and brutally torn from her life, with her world having collapsed in on itself and formed a chaos she had trouble navigating. She found herself with too much time and too little to do with it. Her busy schedule may have seemed like insanity to others, but to her, it had been sanctuary, prevented her from considering things she shouldn’t have been considering. Perhaps taking a nice, long bath instead of a shower was the proper course of action. It definitely would take away from her otherwise unused and stressing free time.

A bath it was, then.

She reached out a hand to turn the faucet on, but then she hesitated, reconsidering. “JARVIS, could you prepare a bath for me?” She asked. She was oddly accustomed to the AI’s ever-constant presence; she knew that it was truly the master of the house in every way imaginable, capable of anything and everything except for disobeying Tony, and sometimes she wondered if that last part was even true, but maybe that was because she had read too many sci-fi books in her free time (which only existed before her first time dealing with the trainwreck life of Tony Stark) about AIs and robots taking over the world and wiping out humanity.

_ “Of course, Miss Potts, _ ” the AI’s voice responded as the bath began to prepare for itself. She wondered how it knew her preferences, but then she remembered that she had taken a bath in the Malibu home once before. It had been after she met JARVIS for the first time, an incident she remembered well. She had walked into the house, so confident and ready to drag Tony out to a conference, only to end up terrified beyond belief. Tony had to calm her down after that, which in his mind apparently included offering Pepper a stay at one of his guest rooms and the suggestion of a shower. She wasn’t surprised that JARVIS remembered, considering computers are less prone to forgetting things unless their storage was compromised or something. (And she knew damn well that Tony would have raised hell and high water alike if anything happened to one of his inventions.)

Some people may consider her insane if they knew that she undressed confidently while she knew a near-omniscient AI probably had some cameras in the area. However, she found that she didn’t care much. She briefly remembered that Tony had once said something about how JARVIS has privacy settings for bathrooms and such, but even if those weren’t true, then unless Tony suspected something when (if) he came back and asked JARVIS for this specific recording, then no one would ever see the tapes anyways. Her secret guilty pleasure of taking a bath in a bathtub fit for a god was safe. 

Once the AI informed her that the bath was ready, she wasted little time in waiting around. However, her entrance into the water was slow; she had not joked in saying the bathtub was probably fit for a god, and she sought to savor the increasingly rare feeling of relaxation in these difficult times. If people knew, they might have called her decisions out as irresponsible or disrespectful, but Pepper knew to silence that self-shaming cry that echoed through her mind. There was nothing she was allowed to do, nothing she was able to do, to help Tony; she rationalized to herself that, at the very least, she could take care of Tony’s house (and take care of herself) until he returned. (If he returned.)

Once Pepper was submerged completely up to her neck, she allowed herself to lean back against the wall of the tub, her head tipped back slightly and the tips of her strawberry blonde hair wet. (Her hairdo was already a wreck from having slept in it for two nights in a row, so she figured she may as well as just let her hair down.) She closed her eyes, allowing her thoughts to wander a bit in peace.

The popular saying went that “money can’t buy happiness.” Pepper knew this to be true; Tony had more money than he could ever possibly use in a lifetime (a lifetime that may have already been cut short), and despite that, he wasn’t happy. He had never admitted it, of course — Lord forbid that the public found out that Tony Stark was not (had not been) the happiest man alive — but she knew him well and had figured it out. He had been happy in his lab, which existed because of money, but he had not been happy because of the money itself. He had been happy during the holidays, but only during ones where there was a small celebration instead of those grand public parties he always claimed to love. Perhaps money could help with happiness, but Pepper was long familiar with the truth that money in itself was not enough to improve the quality of one’s life.

Her thoughts continued to swirl around lazily through her mind, some connected and philosophical while others random and brought forth by nothing more than her brain attempting to make sense of the docile static that took hold of her, as it often took hold of those who were playing with danger and heights on the cliffs of consciousness, on the border with the unknowns of one’s mind. 

She had no clue how long she was in the bath and in her thoughts, but eventually, her skin got all wrinkled, her body informing her that it was time to finish washing off, get out, dry off, and perhaps do something productive with the remainder of her day. She let out a sigh of reluctance at her own decision before pulling herself from the warm waters of the bath, knowing that if she stayed any longer she would have been tempted to just stay there for good. 

Although the rest of what she did was simple, just drying off after a bath, she felt a newfound sense of peace as she followed a routine usually so mundane yet so important in one’s life. 

She considered blow drying her hair and styling it, but she stopped herself. Why bother? She didn’t have a news conference, or a reason for going out in public yet, for that matter. She simply kept her hair wrapped up in the towel as she put on her bathrobe before taking the towel off. She hung both the towel from her hair and the one she dried off with on the towel rack, knowing that the AI of the house would handle the rest. She made sure her bathrobe was tied tightly (more out of habit than any other reason) before she exited the bathroom. And if she found a pair of fluffy and comfortable slippers waiting for her near the bathroom door… well, it would have been a crime to not wear them. 

“JARVIS, what’s the time?” She asked, not certain of where she left her phone and not willing to look for it at that time. 

_ “It is currently 9:02 in the morning, Miss Potts, _ ” JARVIS cordially informed her, his accent almost calming in a weird way. (Although perhaps it was because of how it made him sound even more like a human than most people Pepper met while working for Tony. Lying politicians, deceptive CEOs, reporters faker than mannequins... There were a lot of options to choose from there.)

“Thank you,” Pepper said with gratitude as she considered the implications there. So she had spent roughly an hour taking a bath, which was fine by her. She still had a majority of the day left, though perhaps not as much as she would normally have had, which was also fine by her. After all, it was less time and thus less chances for her to become enraptured in her own brooding thoughts, the thoughts that infected her unwilling brain whenever she was given too much time with too little to keep herself busy with. 

Lost in considerations on what to do next, she wandered out of the guest room she had taken residency within, still wearing her bathrobe. She decided that grabbing a snack and returning to her room was the best course of action for now; she would decide what to do next later, namely once she found her phone and made sure half the world hadn’t blown up while she slept in Tony Stark’s guest room and took a relaxing bath in Tony Stark’s guest bathroom and ate a snack in Tony Stark’s kitchen. 

When she came into the kitchen, all seemed normal… at least until she noticed a bunch of food items spread out on the counter, along with a blender. A few happy beeps sounded before Pepper saw Dum-E parade into the kitchen, looking proud of itself. (Himself?) The robot whirled around, moving closer to Pepper and then a few feet back, as if trying to get Pepper to realize something.

A shocked smile began to form on Pepper’s face as she recognized the absolutely endearing action for what it was. JARVIS must’ve had ordered some food once Pepper had decided to spend the night in the Malibu home. Then, Dum-E must have found out from JARVIS that Pepper was staying, and so the little robot arranged the foods for her. He’d even brought out the blender so Pepper could make a smoothie. (Thankfully, he seemed to have learned from his mistake in the lab and hadn’t attempted to make the smoothie himself. Himself… yeah, sounds better than itself.)

From around the corner of the kitchen island, U is recording Pepper’s reaction, as if he wants to be able to memorialize it forever. Dum-E turned to U and beeped a few times, communicating with the fellow robot. 

Pepper didn’t know if this was just an appreciative motion or an apology for how the robots had acted disappointed when she entered the lab yesterday, when it had taken them a moment to realize that Pepper wasn’t Tony. Regardless, it was simultaneously incredibly heartwarming and staggeringly heartbreaking. Heartwarming, for it showed they cared for her too, despite her not being Tony. Heartbreaking, for Tony wasn’t around to share this moment with his caring family, with the family he managed to create and stitch together after his own life had been struck by immense and unbearable tragedy, the loss of both parents in one night and the weight of a global spotlight set upon his shoulders. 

Pepper may have ended up giving both of the bots a small, affectionate hug before even considering working on making breakfast. She would have given JARVIS a hug, too, but he did not have a physical form, so a verbal thank-you had to suffice. (She’d have to keep the hug idea in mind, though, just in case Tony decided to make JARVIS a physical form or something. You know, when —  _ if _ — he came back from Afghanistan.) She allowed the bots to hang around during breakfast, giving Tony’s lonely robotic creations some company for now. They only parted when Pepper finished eating and had to return to her room to put on some clothes and check up on the state of the world. The bots waved a goodbye to her before returning to the lab, and she found herself waving back with a small laugh, as if they were old friends or even odd family instead of her boss’s pet robotic creations that doubled as assistants.

When she got dressed and finally recovered her phone, Pepper discovered that the phone hadn’t blown up while she was gone. There were missed calls, emails, voicemails, texts, and the such from posh reporters, but there were no messages from Colonel Rhodes or anyone else who could have given her important news. As such, she didn’t care and simply flopped back down onto the bed, burying her face in the fluffy pillow, still processing and living down the overload of adorableness that was breakfast this morning. 

She just wished Tony could have been there to see it, to share the moment.

She just wished Tony could understand how much they — his odd, half-created and half-adoptive family — all care. 

**Author's Note:**

> Another part of the series is complete! I experimented a bit with a few techniques in this chapter, so let me know what you thought. Comments are absolutely adored, and kudos/bookmarks are cool, too. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also... what would you all say if I was to include some OCs for a part of the series or two? Maybe some of Pepper's concerned friends or something?


End file.
